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Sovereignty and Independence in the Contemporary Pacific

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Sovereignty and Independence in the Contemporary Pacific Sovereignty and Independence in the Contemporary Pacific Stewart Firth Political status in the contemporary Pacific Islands takes several forms: Guam is officially an "organized unincorporated territory" seeking to become a "commonwealth" ofthe United States; American Samoa is a "us unorganized unincorporated territory"; the Northern Mariana Islands are a us commonwealth that, by many people's reckoning, is still part of the us Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands; Tonga is an independent king­ dom; Tokelau is New Zealand territory; the Cook Islands are a self-gov­ erning state in free association with New Zealand; Wallis and Futuna are an overseas territory of France; Kiribati is an independent republic; and soon. The variety of constitutional arrangements that define political status in the Pacific Islands may be reduced, in essence, to two main forms: those that permit sovereignty and those that do not. Further, there are two prin­ cipal forms of nonsovereignty: effective incorporation by a metropolitan state and semi-autonomy. Although countries in the last category, the "freely associated" states, have sometimes been said to possess sover­ eignty, they do not. The question is why some states in the Pacific Islands have been fully decolonized and permitted the prerogatives of sovereignty, while others have remained in various positions of constitutional depen­ dence on metropolitan powers. A full explanation must encompass the particularities of historical evo­ lution in different parts of the Pacific Islands. However, an important rea­ son is that different Pacific territories have been of different strategic value to external states; further, external states have differed in their capacity to protect their strategic interests by means of direct, constitutional links. Generally, the greater the strategic value of an island territory, the less likely that territory has been to proceed to sovereign status. The map of The Contemporary Pacific, Volume I, Numbers 1 & 2, Spring & Fall, 1989,75-96 75 ........8MI..li"IlM' It PAP THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING/FALL I989 Pacific Islands sovereignty has been drawn largely according to the strate­ gic needs of external states. But Papua New Guinea, strategically impor­ tant to Australia yet fully independent, is an obvious exception. Even so, the strategic needs of external states still playa large role in determining the development of both sovereign and nonsovereign entities in the Pacific. ------It-is-first-neeessary-t0-clistinguish-between-these-Paei-fi€-Is1an4s-flel-i-ti~s,---­ with sovereignty and those without. I employ the term sovereignty in the sense suggested by Alan James, as meaning constitutional independence, a supremacy deriving from an absence of constitutional ties to another state. The focus of this definition is on the purely constitutional situation, leaving aside the question of political independence; it is an attribute that a state may be said either to have or to not have. By this definition, there can be no degrees of sovereignty (James I986, 24-25). Chapter I of the Tuvalu constitution declares, "Tuvalu shall be a sovereign democratic state," and part I of the constitution ofWestern Samoa says that "the Inde- pendent State of Western Samoa ... shall be free and sovereign" (Levine I983, 9-IO). These statements proclaim the sovereignty of those states, the constitutional position that has obtained since the British and New Zealand flags were lowered in those colonial territories. They are claims to an independent international legal capacity. DEPENDENT TERRITORIES AND PARTS OF OTHER SOVEREIGN STATES Clearly, the French overseas territories in the Pacific-New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna-do not enjoy sovereignty, which rests instead with France. Nor is change likely soon. In New Cale­ donia the agreement of August I988 between independence and loyalist forces-the Front de Liberation Nationale Kanake et Socialiste (FLNKS) and the Rasse'mblement Pour la Caledonie dans la Republique (RPCR)­ provides for a breathing space of ten years until the next referendum on the future political status of the territory; the outcome of that referendum is uncertain. In French Polynesia the idea of an independent Maohi state has not captured the imagination even of a majority of the Polynesians, many of whom believe that their livelihoods would disappear without massive subsidization of the economy from Paris. And in Wallis and Futuna the people (who number I2,500) have so far shown no inclination FIRTH. SOVEREIGNTY AND INDEPENDENCE 77 to break their constitutional connection with France, which underwrites a higher standard ofliving than would be possible as an independent state. Hawai'i is a state of the United States, American Samoa an unincor­ porated territory, and the Northern Marianas a commonwealth. Guam, still a territory, is moving toward commonwealth status. Midway, Wake, Johnston Atoll, Howland Island, and Baker Island, together with the ---:A:merican-tin-e-Islands-K-irrgm-a-n-Reef;-P~lmyraKroll, ancqarviSIslano----- -are all administered by agencies of the us government. In a variety of ways, all of these islands are bits and pieces of America in the Pacific, con­ stitutionally tied to the United States, just as Easter Island, administered as part of Valparaiso Province, is tied to Chile, Pitcairn Islands to Britain, Tokelau to New Zealand, and Norfolk Island to Australia. None of these territories enjoys sovereignty; all, in one way or another, are effectively incorporated in a metropolitan state. FREELY ASSOCIATED STATES Sovereignty is also precluded by the political status of free association, even though that allows for a large measure of self-government. Consider the case of New Zealand and its freely associated states, the Cook Islands and Niue. The crucial section of the Cook Islands Constitution Act of 1964, a piece of New Zealand legislation, provides that "nothing in this Act or in the Constitution shall affect the responsibilities of Her Majesty the Queen in right of New Zealand for the external affairs and defence of the Cook Islands, those responsibilities to be discharged after consultation by the Prime Minister of New Zealand with the Premier of the Cook Islands" (Aikman 1982,87). A similar constitutional relationship exists between Niue and New Zealand, and was approved by Niue voters in a United Nations-observed referendum on 3 September 1974 (Clark 1980, 59). New Zealand has inter­ preted free association as meaning something short of sovereign indepen­ dence but far less restrictive than territorial status, pointing out in 1979 that "the exercise by the New Zealand Government of any responsibilities in foreign affairs or defence must be preceded by full consultation with the Cook Islands. These responsibilities are more in the nature of obligations on New Zealand's part rather than rights of supervision or control" (Clark 1988, 20). The Cook Islands was not admitted to the benefits of the Lome II Convention, governing trade between the European Community and H 'W.W@QAAi§PA"2I'i" 691. THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC. SPRING/FALL 1989 the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States, when it sought mem­ bership in 1979. The reason given by the European Community was that the Cook Islands did not enjoy the status of an independent state "and is not acknowledged by the United Nations as an independent state or acceptable as a Member of the United Nations" (Aikman 1982, 93). Yet as a full member-one of the founding members-of the South Pacific -----'Fc--o=-r-u-m-,-w-'hlcliaOmits sell-governmg as well as sovereign state$-;-rh-e-eo-ok---- Islands is a party to regional agreements such as the 1979 Convention on the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency and SPARTECA, the South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement of 1980, and has signed a maritime-boundary-delimitation treaty with the United States. In its own right, it has signed and ratified the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty of1985. Lacking sovereignty, which is the passport to unchal- lengeable participation in the international system, the Cook Islands must depend for its capacity to enter international legal arrangements on the willingness of other parties to interact with it, and must consult New Zealand about such arrangements beforehand. What is striking about the free association which the Cooks and Niue have with New Zealand is that they may terminate the relationship unilat­ erally by simply amending their own constitutions (Clark 1988,17; Quen­ tin-Baxter 1982, II9). They are at liberty to leave. Free association for them can be seen as genuinely free, a step on the way to sovereign inde­ pendenc:e if that is what the Cook Islanders and the Niueans should ever want. Free association for the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), however, specifically prevents a full and final decolonization by binding those states to the former administer­ ing authority in perpetuity. Separate mutual security pacts, which accom­ pany the Compact ofFree Association between the United States and each of these states, place an obligation on the United States to defend the Marshalls and the Federated States forever, and permit it to foreclose access to the military forces ofthird countries forever (USH-CFA 1985). Section 443 of the compact permits a freely associated state to withdraw from free association if by a plebiscite it gains a majority vote in favor of termination. No doubt James D. Berg, the director of the Office of Freely Associated State Affairs, had this section in mind when he claimed early in 1988 that there are "provisions for each of the states unilaterally to termi­ nate its relationship with the United States in favor of full independence" FIRTH. SOVEREIGNTY AND INDEPENDENCE 79 (Berg 1988,2). What he failed to point out was that the subsidiary agree­ ments regarding sections 321 and 323 ofthe compact, the sections that deal with us military facilities and operating rights in the Marshalls and the Federated States, create a right ofpermanent strategic denial in the area by the United States armed forces.
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